


Decompensation

by TurtleNovas



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Angst, Before epilogue, Blood and Injury, Gen, Post Battle of Starcourt, Self-Worth Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-17
Updated: 2020-11-17
Packaged: 2021-03-09 21:02:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,721
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27602498
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TurtleNovas/pseuds/TurtleNovas
Summary: Steve starts crashing a few minutes after the paramedics walk away.
Relationships: Steve Harrington & Dustin Henderson
Comments: 14
Kudos: 76





	Decompensation

**Author's Note:**

> I have a few nearly complete WIPs laying around from just after season 3 came out, and I decided to just finish them and post them. I had kind of avoided it since they sort of all cover the same ground from slightly different perspectives, but I'm feeling nostalgic. :P So anyways, if this is a bit similar to my other post Starcourt fics and also not that polished, that's why. (This is the first one, and there will probably be one more later, if I get to it lol)
> 
> Also this contains graphic discussions of Steve's injuries, if that will bother you.

Steve starts crashing a few minutes after the paramedics walk away, moving over to another area to check on Robin, leaving him with a blanket draped over his shoulders and specific instructions to wait by the ambulance for someone to give him fluids. He wanders a few feet away to the next ambulance, where Nancy and Jonathan are sitting huddled together, both in one piece, and coherent enough to give him pitying looks as they ensure him they're fine. He tries not to scoff, tries to remember how much he'd loved her, before he really started to know her, and just nods, mumbling something about how good it is that they're fine before he walks away. There's a muscle fluttering at the base of his neck, where it meets his left shoulder, twitching and cramping like the wings of a moth furiously trying to escape the confines of a glass jar. 

A soldier walks past and Steve remembers Dustin and Erica in a flash, anxiety washing over him with enough force that he stumbles when he reaches out to grab the man's sleeve. "Hey," he says, and it comes out slurred and panicked. The soldier stops in his tracks, a flash of annoyance, then confusion breaking over his face before his expression settles into precise, military neutrality. His hands are heavy at Steve's elbows, steadying him to keep him from falling as he stumbles even more, and then dropping back when it seems Steve won't fall.

"You should really stay in the ambulance," the man says, and he sounds so young, Steve wonders if maybe that could've been him, if only his dad were a little more invested, had more of a fetish for authoritarianism, cared more about keeping Steve in line than keeping him convenient. 

Steve nods, swallows hard around the cotton ball dryness of his throat as he tries to find the reason he'd wanted to talk in the first place. "Kids," he says finally, slow and confused, as if even he isn't quite sure where he's going with it. "There were two kids with me, but we left them at the radio tower. They're stranded."

The soldier's eyes widen imperceptibly, and the wash of varying colored lights in the parking lot makes the whites of them stand out, alien and disconcerting in his chiseled face. "Okay," he says, and Steve wants to sag in relief, feels himself begin to sway, but is stopped again by the firm, steady hold of the soldier. 

"Okay," Steve replies, and tries to reach out and touch the soldier back, to put his hands on shoulders and squeeze hard enough to indicate the urgency of the situation. "You guys need to get them," he says, and the underside of his tongue is sticking to his mouth so bad it's starting to sting to pull it away. He feels like someone broke a bottle over his face and shoved the jagged end under his eye. It's familiar, but he still hasn't quite figured out the best way to stave off the wave of nausea that's surely coming. "Our radios," he adds, feeling somewhat genius for remembering the pertinent information while his brain is plumped up like scrambled eggs under his skull. "You can ask for directions on our channel." 

Steve's knuckles are white as bleached bone, his fingers curled hard into the pristine fabric of the uniform. The soldier is so _young_ , he realizes again, and can almost see his own face swimming in front of him. 

"Okay," the soldier repeats, and Steve hears it echoing behind his eye sockets, sees it swimming over his vision, words dripping _redbluewhitefire_ through the air. "We'll get them home safe. You need to go back to the ambulance, now. You don't look so good." 

Steve is falling, feels the ground shifting and rolling under him, pulling him down until his heel scrapes back across the pavement and catches him, his upper half held steady by an unrelenting, military grip. The soldier is walking him backwards, pushing him down, guiding his shoulders until he's sitting again on the floor of the truck, leaning against the doorway, head pillowed slightly by the blanket that had been draped over his shoulders. Before Steve can thank him, he's gone, and Steve's vision is swimming too much to track his movements. 

The next thing he is aware of is a needle going into his arm, and he flinches so hard with the shock of it that his stomach rolls and clenches. The vomit tastes like death in his mouth, and he can smell it, acrid and rotting where it's pooled in his lap and dripped down his legs into his socks. The medic curses, and her hands are much gentler than a soldier's when she coaxes him to calmness and explains he's getting fluids. He can't breathe, and he's sure that this time his brain really is going to ooze out from behind his eyeballs, but somehow he nods and forces himself not to react to the pain of the needle prick, so small it should barely be noticeable, but in the wake of everything else crowding in on his nerves, the bee sting gentle slide of metal into his body feels like immolation. When he looks, he half expects his arm to be cooked, meaty and seeping, like one of the many melted flesh limbs of the mind flayer's massive body. 

He's only vaguely aware of his own surprise that his flesh is intact, a fresh wave of fire razing up his vein into his shoulder, spreading warm and sensuous into his neck, filling his mouth and blazing up into his brain, melting everything in its path until all he feels is a sensation like clouds and carelessness muting the world around him. Apparently there'd been some opiates mixed in with those fluids. He sighs, lets his eyes drift shut, finally able to ignore the sand and ground glass grit feeling of his eyelids. His dick feels warm, and he thinks the feeling in his chest after the realization is a laugh. He'd puked in his lap, and now his dick is warm, even warmer than the rest of him, wrapped up in this blanket, and surrounded by the balmy summer night. He wonders if Dustin would think it's funny, too. Or maybe it's just the drugs, and he shouldn't think about Dustin while he's high, because last time he did, he told a bunch of Russian spies everything they need to know to make Dustin's life dangerous. 

The feeling in his chest this time is definitely a sob.

Time somehow falls into another void as he sits there, his awareness ebbing as the world moves at excess speed around him. All he feels is the floor of the ambulance under his ass, the drugs rolling through him, gentler but still obviously present, and the aching knowledge of what he's done, sitting heavy under his stomach, crowding all of his organs together until his insides are burning with it. He has no concept of how long he sits there, hands curled in his warm, wet lap, staring out at the parking lot of the mall, vision so blurred he can't even tell which people he knows and which are soldiers or other official personnel. He spares a moment to wonder if he's crying, and that's why everything is so blurred, but he feels so out of it, he can't even tell if his face is wet, and if it is, what the moisture is. It could be sweat, or blood, or meat juice. Could be tears.

He hopes he's not crying. He doesn't want everyone to see him sitting alone, crying over another stupid thing he's done to hurt someone he cares about. He hopes if there are tears on his face, people will assume he's just in pain. He doesn't think he can stand the humiliation of everyone knowing that he was so careless, despite how hard he's been trying to be good to Dustin. He tilts his head down, until he can only see the distorted, misty vision of his hands sitting in a vomit damp spot on his lap, hoping that his face will be hidden from anyone who wants to see, who might be interested to know that he's hurt and embarrassed and and a fuck up yet again. 

It takes him by surprise when he feels hands on his face, big and warm, but in a pleasant way, a stark contrast to the stifling heat of the drugs, or the suffocating cloud of fire fresh smoke rolling around everyone, agitated but not cleared by the heavy wind of helicopter blades. He hasn't been listening to the world around him, has been glad for the feeling of water in his ears, allowing all the frantic noise of the scene to be relegated to a senseless drone, but now he picks out the voice of the person in front of him, able to focus if he tries, and the world comes roaring back. It's Dustin, standing close, hands cupping Steve's face so gently, he's not sure it can even be classified as touching. He's just hovering there, so close that the warmth of him is seeping into Steve's sore cheeks, fingertips barely pressing along the line of Steve's jaw, encouraging him to look up. 

"There he is," Dustin says, quiet and amiable, like talking to a small child, or a very scared animal. Steve is relieved to see him okay, feels the knot of guilt and anxiety loosen by a tiny increment knowing that Dustin was at least left intact during his hours of sitting by himself on a hill in the middle of nowhere. Because Steve had not only given his information away to Russian operatives, but had also left him alone and exposed in favor of trying to save everyone else. He could have been killed up there on that hill, and Steve is only just now realizing it as a possibility, feels the terror flooding in at the same time as the relief, and suddenly the smoke in the air feels like it's in his lungs. 

He chokes on it, coughs so hard that he doubles over and nearly falls from where he's seated, except that Dustin has stepped into him, heedless of the mess at Steve's feet or on his clothes. His hands are steady on Steve's shoulders, and he's using his hip to keep Steve from sliding down out of the cab of the ambulance. Steve's throat feels scraped raw, and he's coughing so hard it hurts in his ears, a spearing ache radiating down into his jaw and over every swollen part of his face. 

Dustin is babbling, alternating wildly between talking gently to Steve and calling out for someone to come check on him, and the variation is like lightning splintering through his sinuses. He reaches up and grabs blindly for Dustin's shirt, trying hard to breathe in, and manages enough air to say, "I'm okay, Henderson. Stop yelling." 

Dustin goes still in a way that telegraphs the look he's giving Steve without Steve even having to look up to see it. "Jesus fuck," he says quietly. "Scare me to death why don't you?"

Steve smiles, and it makes him wonder how the fuck he'd been so cheerful before - how he'd managed to laugh and smile so hard without passing out from the agony of it, starting with a ragged tearing sensation in his lip, stinging and acute, and marching outward into an ache like his skin might peel off or fracture open under his eye, just to make room for the amount of blood collecting there. Still, he holds onto it, because even without the evil Russian truth drugs, Dustin's coarse worry is endearing, and Steve feels comfortable and safe under the weight of it, despite everything. 

"Sorry," he mumbles, and thinks it's a minor miracle that it comes out at all, his throat spasming in an attempt to force another coughing fit.

Dustin sighs with his whole body, and leans pointedly into Steve's chest, encouraging him to scoot back into his spot so that Dustin can let go. Steve obliges, and Dustin's hands fall from his shoulders once he's steady. Steve tries to ignore the flash of loss like fireworks under his ribs, knowing he has no right to comfort right now anyways. When he finally looks up to meet Dustin's eye, Dustin is stoic, staring hard at Steve, mouth pulled harshly down into a frown. 

"I think we should get you out of here," he says, and it's so mercifully gentle that Steve wonders how it's even possible, is sure he hasn't done anything to deserve it, in the wake of what an absolutely liability he's proven himself to be tonight. 

Steve swallows hard, and the force of his throat moving feels like razor wire inside his neck. "My parents might be willing to come get me," he suggests, and his blood howls with the desire to ask if he can go home with Dustin, even as he knows the request would be untenable after the danger he's put him in tonight.

Dustin's face crashes so hard through disgust and into disbelief, Steve feels like he's been smacked watching it happen. "Absolutely fucking not," he says, hard and unflinching. "You're coming home with me. We can deal with your _father_ when you've had some rest."

He spits the word 'father' like a curse, as if, even after everything that's happened, and all they've been through, Steve's asshole dad is the thing Dustin hates the most. Steven opens his mouth to say something in reply, tongue pressed up against the roof of his mouth as if ready to form a sound, but his brain refuses to deliver, and he’s forced to bring his jaw up again just to relieve the burn spidering it’s way through his teeth at the movement. He swallows, and it’s an effort not to start coughing again from the texture of it. His eyes sting from the smoke and the lights, and the pressure of grief, and confusion, and desperation, but he can’t blink. 

Dustin is looking back, brow crumpled down in on itself, confusion creeping through the tilt of his mouth, like he doesn’t get why Steve has stalled at this point in the conversation. Steve breathes, hitching several times in quick succession just to try to fill his lungs, and he thinks he can feel a sob starting behind his tongue, his sinuses itching with it too, as he tries to come up with a way to ask, _Why?_ , without the risk of Dustin changing his mind. Everything is so foggy, and suddenly he feels exhausted, swamped with the too heavy feel of gravity pinning him to the spot, his brain so flattened in on itself that articulating his own total worthlessness doesn’t even feel possible, even though it’s the one thing he actually knows for certain.

Dustin’s face softens again, recognition filtering clear and obvious over his features. Steve feels his stomach drop and nearly gags on the sensation, sure he’s going to throw up again as soon as Dustin opens his mouth and agrees with what he’s been thinking. But instead, Dustin smiles, and it looks swollen and bruised, the way Steve’s mouth feels. 

“Alright,” he says, and sounds as tired as Steve feels. “That’s enough of that.” His hands are loose on Steve’s wrists, sliding up his fragile arms, tugging with only enough force to tip Steve forward, unprepared as he is to resist. Steve’s tumbling down out of the cab before he realizes what’s happening, Dustin’s arm sliding around his back in a sort of awkward catch, just barely keeping the both of them from crumpling down onto the asphalt. “We can deal with whatever this guilt thing is tomorrow. After sleep. And showers.” 

He nudges Steve, who is still too confused to really understand what’s happening, into a more stable standing position. When Steve looks down at him, lost, and unsure, and more than a little dizzy, Dustin looks away, the brim of his hat hiding most of his face. “Come on,” he says, heavy, and soft, and sad. “Let’s go home.” 

Steve doesn’t have it in him to refuse, no matter how much he knows he should.

  
  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯


End file.
